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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE BELLS OF SORROW by WILLIAM SHARP

First Line: IT IS NOT ONLY WHEN THE SEA IS DARK AND CHILL AND DESOLATE
Last Line: FROM LONELY HEIGHTS WITHIN MY HEART TOLLING THEIR LONELY SORROW.
Subject(s): BELLS; DROWNING; GODDESSES & GODS; LAMENT; MYTHOLOGY; SOLITUDE; LONELINESS;

It is not only when the sea is dark and chill and desolate
I hear the singing of the queen who lives beneath the ocean:
Oft have I heard her chanting voice when noon swings wide his golden gate,
Or when the moonshine fills the wave with snow-white mazy motion.

And some day will it hap to me, when the black waves are leaping,
Or when within the breathless green I see her shell-strewn door,
The fatal bells will lure me where my seadrown'd death lies sleeping
Beneath the slow white hands of her who rules the sunken shore.

For in my heart I hear the bells that ring their fatal beauty,
The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant their dim to-morrow;
The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal beauty,
From lonely heights within my heart tolling their lonely sorrow.



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